When people travel these days, they’re usually thinking about destination. But the road itself occupies a storied position in American culture, and – even in the age of the interstate and its ever-spreading standardization – getting there can still be half the fun.
The Internet is chock-full of ways to find out more about the roads you want to travel, the roads you’ll never get to, the roads of yesterday that are gone forever – plus loads of sites on fun things along the road.
www.historic66.com www.national66.com
Start on the “Mother Road,” as Route 66 from Chicago to Santa Monica used to be known. The country’s most famous highway, it was decommissioned in 1985 and now exists as a series of back roads and segmented chunks of interstate highway. Roadside aficionados from across the land and as far away as Japan and Germany come to capture something they believe is quintessentially American.
Historic Route 66 offers photos, travelogues, books and maps, and similar visuals are served up at the National Historic Route 66 Federation. State-by-state guides and sites are also at hand with a quick search-engine query.
www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~jlin/lincoln
www.lincolnhighwayassoc.org www.lhhc.org
www.nationalroadpa.org
Even earlier than Route 66, though, were the Lincoln Highway and the National Road, two more eastern attempts at connecting towns through big-time highways.
A Lincoln Highway fan at Cal Tech offers a handy take on the road, including a link to the official Lincoln Highway Association Also try the Lincoln Highway Heritage Corridor. For the old National Road, “The Road that Built the Nation” is a useful place to start.
www.state-ends.com
If you’re seeking out people who love roads more than you do, the definitive destination is State-Ends.com. It’s a monument to a delightful obsession. Folks from 11 states have painstakingly documented and photographed where each local highway in their state ends. It makes for fascinating – and bizarre – viewing.
www.roadtripamerica.com www.fhwa.dot.gov/hep10/nhs
Planning a road trip? Look to Roadtrip America for useful tips. And for straight-up information on the national highway system, look to the government site.
One of the best reasons to travel by road is the weird serendipity of the places you’ll find. These are documented affectionately at myriad sites. Among them:
Motel Americana (www2.sjsu.edu/faculty/wooda/motel) – a wonderfully whimsical site about the roadside motel in America.
Roadside America.com (www.roadsideamerica.com) – dedicated to the still-formidable weirdness that pervades American backroads.
Roadside Peek (www.roadsidepeek.com) – one-stop shopping of American road-trip yesterdays.
Roadside Online, (www.btwmagazine.com) – a journal largely about diners and their history.
The self-explanatory Roadside Art Online (www.interestingideas.com/roadside/artwest.htm)
“Taken on the Road: American Mile Markers” (www.kodak.com/US/en/corp/features/onTheRoad/home) – an elegant and quirky personal travelogue by a road-tripper named Matt Frondorf, who traveled from the Statue of Liberty to the Golden Gate Bridge. He shot 3,304 snapshots.
Ted Anthony, Associated Press
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